Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Thais P. de; SOARES, Luana F.  and  VIEIRA, Poliana M. da S.. Impact of social distancing on parents of children with autism spectrum disorder. Psicol. teor. prat. [online]. 2021, vol.23, n.1, pp. 1-20. ISSN 1516-3687.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5935/1980-6906/ePTPC1914000.

COVID-19 brought worldwide changes to the parenting routine. This study mapped the impact of social distancing on the interventions of parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Five hundred and fifty-three caregivers (98.7% mothers) of children with ASD responded to an online questionnaire about their interventions and formal support before and after the beginning of the pandemic. The results showed that a statistically significant number of parents exchanged a schedule of once-a-week professional supervisions for a schedule of "on-demand" supervisions during the pandemic. Furthermore, the hours of intervention conducted by parents at home remained unchanged during the pandemic, although they reported spending more time with their children in this period. Parental training on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is discussed, but perhaps because parents seldom received prior training, more time with their children did not translate into an increase in well-planned and guided interventions by systematic professional supervision.

Keywords : Social Distancing; COVID-19; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Parents training; Applied Behavior Analysis.

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